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DVD: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000...
http://thefilmarchive.org/
Detour (1945) is a film noir thriller that stars Tom Neal, Ann Savage, Claud...
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DVD: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000...
http://thefilmarchive.org/
Detour (1945) is a film noir thriller that stars Tom Neal, Ann Savage, Claudia Drake and Edmund MacDonald. The movie was adapted by Martin Goldsmith and Martin Mooney (uncredited) from Goldsmith's novel and was directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. The 68-minute film was released by the Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC), one of the so-called "poverty row" film studios in mid-twentieth century Hollywood.
Although made on a small budget with bare sets and straightforward camera work, Detour has gathered much praise through the years and is held in high regard.
Al (Tom Neal) is a piano player who sets off hitchhiking his way to California to be with his fiancee. Along the way a convertible driven by Charles Haskell Jr. stops to pick him up. Al is driving while Haskell sleeps when a rainstorm begins and Al pulls over to put up the top. However, Haskell does not wake up and falls out onto the pavement, dead. Al dumps the body in a gully, takes Haskell's money, clothes and ID, then drives off in Haskell's expensive car. In voiceover, Al tells the audience that he did not kill Haskell. After spending the night in a motel, Al picks up another hitchhiker. As it happens, Vera (Ann Savage, playing a femme fatale) had earlier ridden with Haskell and blackmails Al by threatening to turn him in for murder unless he gives her all the money.
In Hollywood they rent an apartment and while trying to sell the car, learn from a newspaper that Haskell was about to collect a large inheritance. Vera, who has an unknown illness which she hints may cut her life short, demands that Al impersonate Haskell but Al balks at this notion. When the two get drunk in the apartment and begin arguing, a snubbed Vera takes Al up on his angry dare to call the police, whereupon Al accidentally strangles her with a telephone cord. Again in voiceover, Al claims he did not kill Vera. Al starts hitchhiking back east, but as the film ends is picked up by the police near Sacramento Springs.
Cast Tom Neal as Al Roberts Ann Savage as Vera Claudia Drake as Sue Harvey Edmund MacDonald as Charles Haskell Jr Tim Ryan as Nevada Diner Proprietor Esther Howard as Holly, Diner Waitress Pat Gleason as Joe, Trucker at Diner Don Brodie as the Used Car Salesman
In 1972, Director Ulmer said in an interview that the film was shot in six days. In a 2004 documentary Ulmer's daughter Arianne presented a shooting script title page which noted, "June 14, 1945-June 29. Camera days 14." Ann Savage was contracted to PRC for the production of Detour for three six-day weeks. She later said the film was shot in four six-day weeks with an additional four days of location work in the desert at Lancaster, California. While popular belief long held that Detour was shot for about $20,000, Noah Isenberg, in doing research for his book on the film, discovered that the film's actual cost was upwards of $100,000.
As detailed in Savage Detours: The Life and Work of Ann Savage, great care was taken during the post-production of Detour. The final picture was tightly cut down from a much longer shooting script, which had been shot with more extended dialogue sequences than appear in the final film. The soundtrack is fully realized, with ambient backgrounds, motivated sound effects, and a carefully scored original musical soundtrack by Leon Erdody. Ulmer and Erdody had previously worked together on Strange Illusion. Erdody took extra pains to underscore Vera's introduction with a sympathetic theme, giving the character a light musical shading in contrast to her razor-sharp dialogue, and its ferocious delivery by Ann Savage. The film was completed, negative cut and printed throughout the late summer and fall of 1945. It was released in November of that year. The total period of pre-production through post-production at PRC ran from March through November 1945. In contrast, during the period Detour was in post, PRC shot, posted and released Apology for Murder, also starring Ann Savage. Apology was given a shorter production period, a quick sound job, and used library music for the soundtrack.
In 1992, Detour was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Critical response to the film today is almost universally positive. Most reviewers contrast the technical shoddiness of the film with its successful atmospherics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detour_%...
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